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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Men that won't / can't cook

135 replies

Bennifer · 07/03/2012 15:07

Am I unreasonable to think it?s a little strange that there are men who either can?t or won?t cook, and also that they are supported in this by their partners.

I have to admit to having a personal angle on this. As far as I know, my 33 year old brother has never cooked a meal in his life. He lived at home until he was 21, and then moved out with his partner. In the past when I?ve asked him about it, he has jokingly said that when he has picked up a knife to chop an onion, his partner has taken it off him.

I can see the logic to this if one partner is a SAHP, for example, but neither of them is. His partner works long hours, and weekends, so rather than him cooking the meal when he gets home, he waits until his partner gets home. This can mean that they don?t eat as healthily as perhaps they could, because when you get in at 7 or 8, with no food, it?s tempting to get something quick and easy.

Is this a little strange, or am I unreasonable? I know it?s none of my business really.

OP posts:

exoticfruits · 24/04/2012 22:18

What are you going to do when he is older Kelly?

Rosmarin · 24/04/2012 22:31

I generally find it perplexing when people can't or don't cook because I love cooking and eating. Food is such a huge part of my life that I couldn't imagine just getting by on bacon sandwiches or boiled eggs etc.

But I know many guys and many girls who have what I would call 'unhealthy' relationships with food. My female flatmate last year never cooked anything besides rice in a rice cooker and porridge in the microwave. She actually had months' worth of frozen food which she'd regularly bring from her parents house. In Canada.
We lived in the UK.
For her, food was just a means to an end.

kelly2525 · 24/04/2012 22:38

Give him a tenner, pop a sat nav round his neck with the postcodes for the nearest Chinese, Indian, Italian and Thai takeaways and let him get his own dinner

Actually if you read my first post you'll see I've already started growing stuff for him, nothing exciting, just potatoes, strawberries, tomatoes, raspberries and herbs for now, when he's a bit older I'll get a bit more adventurous. He'll always have the best food with the freshest ingredients, so far he loves all vegetables, hopefully it'll stay that way.

thebody · 24/04/2012 22:42

Well it's a couples dynamic isn't it. I clean and do washing, dh when he's home cooks and shops. Suits me.

PooPooInMyToes · 24/04/2012 22:48

Kelly. Once you are cooking your son proper meals will you eat those as well or still eat your ready meals?

LeBOF · 24/04/2012 23:04

DP and I are both good cooks, but he seems to take more pleasure in it than I do, generally. He hasn't lived alone for long periods, but he likes watching cookery shows and I think he enjoys the creative aspect of it. He also has that weirdly male (IME) preoccupation with adding his own unique concoction of spices to dishes which would be perfectly fine left alone . My brother is the same: at the moment he and DP are engaged in a ridiculously expensive joint enterprise to grow every available species of chilli known to man...they've bought special lights, heaters, blends of compost, an indoor greenhouse . For both of them, cooking is something they do to relax. I tend to see it as a bit of a chore.

BertieBotts · 24/04/2012 23:16

DP doesn't cook, and it really fucking irritates me, TBH.

He will willingly make a fry-up, or pasta (which involves pasta, bacon, and jar sauce. With cheese on his portion.) Or something which comes out of the freezer, into the oven with no other prep needed. If I ask him (or he offers) to make dinner, this is what we have. Mostly we eat separately because he works nights.

He refuses to have anything to do with vegetables unless it is potato or sweetcorn.

Has once made a stew in the slow cooker, but TBH I haven't pushed the issue again because he used gravy granules instead of any kind of seasoning, stock, NORMAL ingredients and it was really salty and horrible.

When pressed, he says he "doesn't like cooking" and he is, in fact, utterly happy to live off this limited repertoire, variety added by the odd takeaway. Although he does like it when I make other things, which is why I get annoyed. If he likes the other things, then he can cook other things. It's not hard. I don't like cleaning the toilet but I still do it.

Once he's no longer working nights I will be insisting on some kind of cooking rota, because I'm not eating crappily forevermore.

seeker · 24/04/2012 23:24

Why would anyone want to be with a man who couldn't look after himself and his family if he needed to? Proper grownnup men know how to cook a decent meal, how to look after children and how to keep a house reasonably hygienic and pleasant to live in. Even if family circumstances means that he doesn't do these things every day, he should be able to- who knows when he might need to?

kelly2525 · 24/04/2012 23:28

I am cooking him proper meals, just mushed up, without salt and slightly over cooked so he can get used to lumpy food.

Not that I need to explain myself but he gets lasagne, shepherds pie, both a minced beef version and a chicken and mushroom/sweet potato top one, as many different vegetable soup combinations as i can come up with and a couple of pasta sauces.

He gets good healthy meals, as for when he's older I assume I'll still be in the same job Ive been in for the last 12 years, so will still be working until 8.30pm and it will still be grandma sitting down to eat with him every night, while I'll bung an m&s or tesco special in the oven after my tired arse gets home and puts him to bed.

NarkedPuffin · 25/04/2012 00:19

Basic cooking is a lifeskill ...

...and so is driving

exoticfruits · 25/04/2012 07:26

I can't see why you go to the expense, Kelly-just cook a larger amount and heat your up when you get home. If you agree ready meals are unhealthy for a DC you must realise they are unhealthy for you too. Once in a while is fine, but not everyday. There was an excellent article yesterday about French cooking, and the reason they are generally healthy, it said if a dish has more than 5 ingredients don't eat it. Processed food nearly always has more than five.
I agree with seeker. I wouldn't have married a man who couldn't/wouldn't do everything. If I was in that state now I would make sure the fridge was loaded with simple ingredient and there was plenty of veg and go away for the weekend, tell him that he had the DCs and it was up to him, cookery books were on the shelf. Men get into the situation because women let them, or they do it badly so that they take over. If they do it badly, let them-in the end they get it right.
I have never met a child who doesn't love cooking-of either sex or all ages. I suspect they get bored because parents are still thinking cup cakes are adventurous and won't let them near kettles or knives when they are fully capable of cooking a whole meal themselves at 10 years. I have made soup with a whole group of 10 year olds and because it involved chopping vegetables with sharp knives, stirring boiling liquids on hobs and liquidizing it was a complete novelty to them all.

PooPooInMyToes · 25/04/2012 08:17

Kelly. So would you eat what he eats with grandma if there was some left over or would you still prefer the ready meal? What sort of ready meals do you eat? I get the impression you actually eat them from choice rather then convenience?

My dad ate a lot of them after my mum died and they, combined with no fruit or veg but lots of coffee, cakes and chocolate ended up with him being rushed to hospital. They said it was his terrible diet. Very scary.

PooPooInMyToes · 25/04/2012 08:18

. . . That's what happens when a person goes their whole life having all their cooking done for them!

exoticfruits · 25/04/2012 08:23

They get elderly and go into care PooPoo. My aunt said my uncle would have to, he couldn't even boil an egg. He died first so it was OK.

PooPooInMyToes · 25/04/2012 08:32

My dad was only in his fifties when he was widowed!

exoticfruits · 25/04/2012 08:32

Did he learn to cook then?

catinboots · 25/04/2012 08:37

My mother doesn't and has never cooked.

Gay40 · 25/04/2012 08:39

If you eat, then you should be able to cook in my opinion. I don't buy this "oh never learnt" nonsense. It is a basic life skill.
Neither would I would set up home with someone who couldn't/wouldn't cook, clean and be able to do everything I could.

augustajones · 25/04/2012 08:56

My DH doesn't cook and doesn't know how. Apart from cheese on toast and steak he never has (and he lived on his own for six years before we got together). The rest of the time he lived on takeaways.

I, on the other hand, love food and love cooking. It's really important to me to eat properly and eat a wide range of food.

I really would love DH to cook the occasional meal to take the monotony out of it but when I've asked him about it he says he doesn't like cooking and just isn't interested. Fair enough. If I am out for the evening, I don't go to great lengths to accommodate him. He either eats in work or eats something out of the fridge/freezer. To me, it's not a deal breaker. If I had a problem with it then I wouldn't stay with him. The only thing that does make me feel sad is thinking of him on his own as a little old man eating Co-op ready meals if I depart before him. (I'm six years older!).

exoticfruits · 25/04/2012 08:58

No wonder people are overweight and unhealthy.

PooPooInMyToes · 25/04/2012 09:19

Exotic. Well not really. There was the hospital trip by ambulance which gave him a shock and after that he's eaten a little bit better, but he finds learning new things very difficult anyway and that includes cooking. I think if he had learnt gradually over the years it wouldn't have been so bad but now he has no confidence about it.

He eats more fruit now but it still incapable of cooking a meal which isn't a microwave meal and i had to teach him how to do that.

I've tried teaching him basic cooking but he just can't.

seeker · 25/04/2012 09:21

What I don't get is why these men aren't ashamed of not being able to look after their families.

WhispersOfWickedness · 25/04/2012 09:22

DH does the cooking in this house. I can cook, I just don't like doing it, it is a massive chore to me and he enjoys it so it makes sense that he does it. I'm a SAHM. My MIL (a lovely person but slightly stuck in traditional roles) can't get her head around it, she thinks I don't cook because I don't know how and bought me a book called 'how to cook' for the first Christmas after we were married 4 years later, she's only just stopped asking me what we're having for dinner and then getting a look when I say I have no idea! I guess I have to let her off as we are quite traditional in other ways, I clean, organise calendar etc and DH does cars, garden, DIY etc and we share childcare when we're both here.

PooPooInMyToes · 25/04/2012 09:23

August. Sounds like he's making a choice there with the whole don't like it and not interested attitude. Its his choice i suppose.

Can't say id be keen to cook for him all the time though. If he's not interested in cooking it then he's not interested in eating it in my opinion. Or rather i wouldn't be interested in cooking it for him every day.

seeker · 25/04/2012 09:23

What I don't get is why these men aren't ashamed of not being able to look after their families.

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